The Revelation of Jesus Christ ready seen, the number, seven, plays a prominent part in the book. These "seven personages" are: ( 1) The woman, 12:1. 2: (2) Satan. 12:3, 4: (3) the Christ Child. 12:5, 6; (4) the archangel. 12:7-12; (5) the Jewish remnant, 12:17; (6) the beast out of the sea, 13:1-10; and (7) the beast out of the earth, 13: 11-18. These are "the great actors for good and for evil" that will be on the stage, as it were, during that short period of time between the translation of the church and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. For our study today we shall con sider the "woman," "the man child," and "the dragon," noting also the "war in heaven" between the archangel. Michael. and "his angels" on the one hand and "the dragon ... and his angels" on the other. Then in our next lesson we shall see what chapter thirteen says about "the beast out of the sea" and "the beast out of the earth." THE w OMAN-ISRAEL 12: 1, 2 ' ''.And there appeared a great wonder In heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." This woman that John saw, "clothed with the sun," with "the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars," had a malevolent enemy, the great dragon, with "seven heads and ten horns." The tail of this dragon drew a third part of the stars of heaven behind him. When the woman was delivered of her child, the dragon was there to devour it; but "the man child" was caught up into the pres ence of God-that "man child" who is going to "rule all nations with a rod of iron." Later in this chapter we read that the woman flees into the wilderness, where a place has been prepared for her by God. There she will be nourished and protected for "a thousand two hundred and three score days." First of all, we want to know what the Word of God tells us concerning the identity of this woman. There is only one way of understanding the figures of the book of Revelation, and that is to take each figure and turn to other portions of the Word of God to see what is said in regard to that figure. It is amazing, my dear friends, to find what some Bible teach-
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